SEC Basketball Midseason Report

As we pass the halfway point of the season, the SEC East continues to dominate the league, racking up the top four spots in our power ranking poll and making it appear increasingly likely that no team from the SEC West will receive an NCAA tournament bid unless one of those teams wins the conference tournament. I've already written that the divisional system makes no sense for basketball, but each week that becomes more clear.

Per the RPI, six of the top eight teams are in the SEC East. Only Ole Miss, at 39, is in the top 50 from the SEC West. What's more, the top five times in the East are now, wait for it, 18-1 against the West. What should we be looking for down the stretch of the SEC race? And how will each team finish?
SEC East


1. Kentucky will finish 13-3 and win the SEC East by two games.

Wildcat fans are already fuming over the very idea that they'll lose two more games. So I'll go ahead and tell them what games their team will lose: at Vanderbilt and either at Tennessee or at Mississippi State. The Wildcat message boards will explode with outrageous indignation over these losses and the doom that they forecast.

That will mean the Wildcats receive the overall No. 1 seed for the SEC tournament in Nashville. And go ahead and pencil in the SEC tourney title and an overall number one seed.

Provided, that is, that John Calipari gets Demarcus Cousins off the floor without incident after Vanderbilt's students storm the court Feb. 20.

2. Vandy will be second at 11-5 and lock down a top four seed in the NCAA tournament with a run to the championship game in the SEC Tourney.

Jermaine Beal and Jeffery Taylor are the most underrated backcourt in the nation. If Taylor can step up down the stretch the Commodores have a chance to make a run at Kentucky for the overall East title. If he doesn't then the Commodores will have to make do with the two seed in the SEC tournament being played in their hometown. The two-seed mind you, that would put Vandy on the opposite side of the bracket from Kentucky.

Then the only question would be whether or not Vandy's fickle fan base would be willing to travel the extra 2.5 miles down Broadway to watch their team play instead of seeing them play at Memorial Gym.

That's not a joke, for the past two seasons Vandy fans have been unwilling to attend off-campus games in downtown Nashville.

Yeah, all 2.5 miles extra to travel.

Anyway, how high Vandy's regular season win total will go really depends on these four games: at Ole Miss, Kentucky, at Arkansas and at Florida.

Right now I'm projecting the Commodores lose three of these games, all the road contests. Win two of three, and I think Vanderbilt ties with 13-3 Kentucky. Since the teams would split the season series, we'd go to the division record.

I'd put the chances of Vandy at winning the east at around 25 percent.

3. Tennessee goes 10-6 and takes the three seed.

I'm predicting just one win out of the final four road games: Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi State and three home wins, including Kentucky. Lose to Kentucky at home and the Vols will need to find a way to win two of those road games to get to at least ten wins for the fifth consecutive year under Bruce Pearl.

Given that Bruce Pearl is 8-1 in his career against Billy Donovan, the Florida game is certainly winnable. The same would hold true for South Carolina and Mississippi State.

Kentucky on Saturday at Rupp?

That ain't happening.

More ominously for Vol fans, this is the second consecutive year where Tennessee can't hit a 3-point basket to save their life. Renaldo Woolridge, the man who came off the bench to hit four big threes against Kansas in the Vols upset win, has hit a 3-point shooting wall.

In the first three games after the suspension, Woolridge was 8-15 from three.

In the most recent eight conference games, Woolridge is 1-15.

And most of those looks have been wide open.

4. Florida finishes another disappointing season at 9-7.

Once more Gator fans will have to wonder whether Billy Donovan still wishes he had taken the Orlando Magic job. It has been a precipitous fall for Donovan's Gators -- from back-to-back NCAA titles to nary an NCAA appearance since.

The mighty Gators are a couple of Chandler Parsons jumpers away from having no shot short of winning the conference tournament to get in the NCAA tourney.

As is, sitting at 6-4 in conference, odds are that the Gators would get in with a 9-7 conference record.

Maybe.

That's because right now the Gators are No. 48 in the NCAA's official RPI, and that's not including Wednesday's loss to South Carolina (The NCAA updates its official RPI numbers every Sunday night). That's almost certainly too low for an at-large bid. But a home win over Vanderbilt, currently No. 19 in the RPI, would work wonders. So would a home win over Tennessee, No. 18.

Absent both, the Gators are going to pull off the stay home trifecta.

5. South Carolina goes 8-8.

Or rather that should read: Devan Downey gets eight wins.

I know he's indestructible, I know he's unstoppable, but Devan Downey is wearing down. That's what happens when your entire offensive system consists of letting a 5-foot-9 point guard find ways to create shots off the dribble. All while SEC teams throw one fresh defender after another at him.

You want to explain how big Gamecock basketball is?

Devan Downey doesn't even have a wikipedia page. Conversely John Wall, the point guard he dominated, has a 1,100-word Wikipedia entry.



6. Georgia looks to next season.

Still, don't be shocked if the Bulldogs give Kentucky a tussle in Athens. Already the Bulldogs have pulled off double-digit wins over Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Plus, Mark Fox gave the Wildcats their closest home conference game of the season.

And, you might as well write this down, Georgia will beat the SEC West's No. 3 seed, Ole Miss, at the SEC tournament.

SEC West

1. Mississippi State goes 9-7 to snag the division crown.

As a result, the Bulldogs get the illegitimate No. 1 seed on their side of the bracket. That entitles the team to a undeserved bye into the second round.

If the SEC did away with the divisional format, all four byes would go to SEC East teams. As is, being second or fourth in the East is a desirable draw. Meaning you can go ahead and write this matchup in the second round of the SEC Tournament: Florida vs. Mississippi State.

Florida will win and State will go home.

Whereupon Rick Stansbury will sit up all night writing angry letters to the NCAA over the Renardo Sidney situation.

Then he'll order up the SEC West champion bling. One game over .500, baby, that's how we roll. A few months later, those rings will be for sale on eBay with a buy it now option of $19.

2. Arkansas goes 9-7 and John Pelphrey manages to snag another year of ineptitude.

Look, I know Arkansas is better since Courtney Fortson's return, but the Razorbacks would become the first SEC team in the history of the league to go 11-5 and not get a bid.

Why?

Because the team is currently, wait for it, 113th in the RPI.

One hundred-thirteen! And they are leading the SEC West with a 6-3 record!

This is a team with consecutive losses to Morgan State, East Tennessee State, and South Alabama.

They followed that up by going 1-6 between Dec. 30 and Jan. 23.

Now they're the best team in the SEC West.

Anyway, the Razorbacks aren't getting to 11-5, but I'm rooting for them to get there just for the test case. As is, 9-7 will be the top result possible.

And John Pelphrey will prove he owns the NIT.

3. Ole Miss goes 8-8 to stave off all international incidents.

Right now the Rebels are the only team in the west with an RPI high enough to suggest they could get an at-large bid.

After losing to Mississippi State Thursday night, however, the schedule looks daunting.

Trust Andy Kennedy to handle it. After all, he handled an "international situation" after his arrest in Cincinnati. The NIT? That's nothing, man.

4. Auburn goes 6-10 and fires Jeff Lebo.

Then again, they probably won't bother to fire him since most Auburn fans have forgotten they actually have a basketball program. That's the only way to explain how former offensive coordinator Tony Franklin got one month on the Plains and Jeff Lebo has gotten six years.

FYI, Jeff Lebo's SEC record just over halfway through his sixth season -- 31-57.

He's never been to the NCAA tournament, but in all fairness, he has made the NIT once.

What more can you ask for?

Also, and this is a glaring flaw, for five seasons he's managed to recruit every single player to play the exact same position.

5. Alabama hits 5-11, or, in Anthony Grant's contract terms, $360,000 per conference win.

Hey, that's a bargain!

Nick Saban got $444,000 per conference win last season.

What?

He won every game and the national title?

Okay, maybe there is a mathematical flaw in my calculations. Give 'Bama credit for at least one thing, they pay their coach enough to win.

6. LSU rolls out a perfect 0-17 conference record.

Trent Johnson is going to achieve the rather remarkable position of going from a career SEC winning percentage of 78 percent to a career winning percentage of 40 percent in just one season.

I feel comfortable such a step has never happened before.

I also feel comfortable that the reanimated corpse of Pete Maravich has more offensive moves than the current LSU basketball team. Watching them play, you almost want to amend the rules and give them credit for scratching the rim.